Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 295, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1920 — Need Radium in Fight on Cancer [ARTICLE]

Need Radium in Fight on Cancer

Movement on Foot to Substitute Meso-Thorium in Making Luminous Materials. MEDICAL DEMAND IS GREAT ’ 7 v Physicians and Chemists Fee! That Everything Possible Should Be Done to Conserve Radium for Therapeutic Purposes, v Schenectady, N. Y.—-So great is the demand for radium in the treatment of cancer and various malignant diseases, that a mo vein ent is now on foot for withdrawing it as much as possible from the manufacture of luminous dials and other Industrial purposes, so that it may be employed entirely for the treatment of human ills. How this is being effected was told by Dr. Harlan S. Mfnen a Philadelphia chemist, who addressed the eastern section of the American Chemical society at Union college in this city. The substance advocated as a substitute Is meso-thorium, a by-product obtained lif the manufacture of thorium, a mineral which Is extensively employed in the manufacture of gas mantles. Comes From Brazil and India. The ores from which thorium Is made are imported largely from Brazil and India, although there Is a limited supply available in the United States. Meso-thorium can be seen at night and therefore is an ingredient of the paint which is used In the marking of clock faces, watch dials and range, finders which can be read In the dark. The demand for such appliances in the trenches during the European war greatly stimulated their manufacture both here and abroad, and although they are no longer military necessities they have an extensive vogue in these days of peace. Thorium Is Itself radio-active, but Is chiefly valuable because when mixed with one or two per cent of cerium oxide and heated it gives out a powerful radiance.'lts use is increasing because municipalities are accepting a heat unit rather than a candlepower standard for • illuminating gas, and the demand for mantles is likely to extend. Consequently the facilities for making the by-product meso-thori-um, which would not be commercially practical Of itself, are being augmented. “Companies which are now .manufacturing thorium,” said Dr. Miner, “have ever since 1914 been developing their outputs of meso-thorium, and there has been special activity along those lines in the last few The demand for radium in the treatment of cancer and for'other medical purposes is now so great that both physicians and chemists feel that everything possible should be done to conserve -it exclusively for therapeutic

purposes. If radium is kept in the large hospitals and sanitaria for the relief of malignant diseases, it naturally will be held intact. The losses from its* emanations are so slight that it can be used for centuries without any appreciable diminution in its properties. As everything is being done by the medical profession to concentrate the supply In this way, the Consensus Is that it should be held where It will do the most service to humanity. Causes Heavy Loss. “If various forms of radium are employed in the manufacture of luminous paint and for other mechanical purposes, there will naturally be a heavy loss of the element. Watches; clocks or penknives on which radium is

used are likely to be Jost, mislaid or destroyed, when the supply of the element becomes so ,widely distributed that the chances for recovering It would be slight. “It happens, however, that there are also manufacturers of luminous materials who are In a position to derive both radium and meso-thorlum from certain minerals, and they are Inclined to set aside their radium for medical purposes and to use the meso-thorium, which Is chemically Identified with radium, as a luminous material. Although there has been some difference of opinion in the medical profession as to the value of radium in the treatment of maladies, there is much to indicate that it and radio-active substances generally have an important part in the practice of the healing art.” Dr. Miner also described at length the uses of other rare earths such as cerium and zirconium in the arts and sciences. He held out the prospect that some df them, which hitherto had been Imported from Austria and Germany, could be obtained on a limited scale from sources on the American continent